


Cross-wires

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Multi, season five AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:30:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of those Lincoln Lee in season five AU's.<br/><em>Olivia can relate to making a choice in haste.  To not wanting to feel how she once felt and making a decision to alter it.  All three of them have made that decision poorly at one stage<em></em></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cross-wires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monanotlisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/gifts).



Olivia finds him by the edge of the creek - a babbling brook, it might have been called thirty years ago, except the creek is strangled by toxic waste; the water brackish and foul - Lincoln’s shoes are unlaced, bare toes squishing into the dirt as he stares at the water pensively.  In the dim light, Olivia can read his expression easily.  “Hey.”

He hitches one shoulder and turns to greet her.  “I’m afraid I’ll lose a toe,” Lincoln admits, ruefully. 

The brook isn’t babbling.  It’s muffled.  Moving at a snails pace.  Under no circumstances would Olivia wash _anything_ in it, be it limb or clothing.  “Possibly.  But you might grow three more.”

He took a hit in the centre of his chest by an Observer’s weapon today, the blast knocking him into a concrete pillar.  Olivia would like to have a word with September about that because: a) when Lincoln said he would help, September failed to mention he would be helping _in the future._   And b) while dumping Lincoln into the middle of a fire-fight proved ultimately useful - because Lincoln served as an _excellent_ distraction - there was no need to get him stunned within three seconds of arrival.   His eyes are currently blown wide, pupils dilated from Walter Bishop’s travelling pharmacy - pain relief and muscle relaxants and something else that’s left Lincoln loose-limbed and chatty. Olivia’s loathe to leave him unsupervised in such a state.  She’s hesitant to let him out of her view altogether.  Lincoln’s familiar, utterly human, when her own husband became a wraith and the future was nothing she wanted a part of, Olivia finds herself unable to stop looking at him.  Double-checking that he's real.

“I thought vortexes and amber alerts would be it,” Lincoln confesses.  He looks soft in the half-light, a deception of shadow.  He looks drawn, as tired as Olivia feels.   “Trying to save people, make a difference, but both of those events ceased after the bridge was created.  When it was sealed, nothing deteriorated further.  The world was damaged but stable.”  He looks at her, expression wry.  His toes dig into the earth.  He draws his knees to his chest, arms looped around his shins like a teenager.  “No vortexes, no air degradation. It was back to police work, endless reports, and perimeter checks to make sure the amber was holding in the damaged zones.  Back to the Academy for me – for remedial retraining.”  Olivia startles.  It’s standard procedure, albeit with abbreviated courses for law enforcement agents, but it hadn’t occurred to her Lincoln wouldn’t be working with her double.  Not immediately.  Maybe never at all.  “In the end, I think you guys had it worse.”

Olivia supposes the alternate world deserves a break; that the Observer’s chose the reality less likely to suck them into a black hole, but she’s not sure how to respond to the rest of it.  Thankful, maybe, that somewhere people are living normal lives, untouched by invasion.   Something harder, buried deep, wonders why it couldn’t have been _this_ world.  Couldn’t have been Etta. “Thank you,” she decides at last.  “For agreeing to come back.”

“It’s home.”  It hasn’t been Olivia’s home for over twenty years but Lincoln’s already figured that out.  He’s struggling, thrown out of time and scrambling to find his feet.  The on-set of delayed shock dogging his heels. 

Olivia can relate.

“The other world wasn’t?” she asks, gently.  “A home for you?” 

Olivia watches his jaw flex, his eyes narrow.  Lincoln ducks his head and says in a long, run-off sentence.  “Have you ever been attracted to someone?  An instant, animal attraction?  The sex is fantastic and every time you touch, it’s a physical spark but…” He laughs humorlessly.  “But, jesus, no matter what you do, you never see eye to eye?”  Those sparks start to burn after a while, Olivia knows; in their stead, they leave cinder points and ashes, scars that won’t be covered over.  “Liv and me, we were from different worlds, opposing realties.  We were constantly moving in the opposite direction to one another.  She’d go in with guns blazing or veer off without consulting me…and…it was _exhausting_.”  He sounds lost.  To Olivia’s ears, he sounds uncomfortably defeated, too. Olivia can feel her muscles freeze, recognition strangling her voice. Lincoln glances at her and winces. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be speaking about this with you; it’s inappropriate.  And I wanted to help…I still do.”

“No,” she reassures, and takes a seat beside him.  “It’s fine, Lincoln.”

It’s nearing dusk.  Fool’s light throws long shadows against the ground, the temperature cooling fast.  There’s an absence of natural wildlife, no crickets, no cicadas.  The distant city lights obscure the field of stars in the sky.  Olivia zips her jacket up, shoulders rising against the chill.

Lincoln’s talking about her and not talking about her - he’s describing his relationship with Liv – but he could just as easily be talking about her relationship with Peter, too.  Like clings to like and she wonders bitterly if maybe it’s as simple as that.  Opposing worlds - opposing viewpoints hardwired into their DNA - always half a step out of sync with one another, vibrating on different frequencies. She might ask Peter if he sometimes felt the same way – except she’s too raw to table the discussion. If Peter and the other Olivia had moved together seamlessly, as seamlessly maybe, as Olivia sometimes felt around Lincoln. 

“I thought I could adapt to another world as easily as Peter did.  I thought it would be as simple as it had been between _you and me_.  I mean - the attraction was there.”  Olivia can feel her eyebrow rise the same moment Lincoln blushes pink, before he stutters in a rush.  “Not that you remember any of that, of course.” Olivia’s lack of response only seems to make him nervous. “I was shot this afternoon,” he prevaricates.  “By a sci-fi gizmo from another world.”  Eloquently, her eyebrow rises even further. “And I’m drugged.”

 _Simple attraction_ , Olivia tries to remember what it felt like, to be pain-free.  She remembers asking Lincoln out twice before Peter arrived. It was a time in her life when Olivia looked at the world as if there was a dividing wall between the ability to form proper connections and her own emotional state - some dark pit in the centre of her being - present since early childhood.  She remembers thinking Lincoln might be worth the effort to break through it.  That feeling something, _anything_ , had to be better than being smothered all the time.   Some parody of fate, Olivia muses, because in the world she currently inhabits, Olivia wouldn’t mind retaining some of her old numbness. 

Olivia might have been angry with Peter (furious until the day Windmark actually _died_ and Peter tried to come out of it by his own volition, flickering in and out of emotion like a guttering flame.  It was the man who murdered his daughter - callously - that Peter wanted beyond all self-preservation.  The other Observers, the war, helping Olivia emotionally rather than tactically, Peter struggled back to it, trying to recover a humanity he had purposely discarded.  But for one brief second, Olivia thought she had lost him entirely.  That Windmark wasn’t enough.  That what they once _shared_ wouldn’t be enough. She feared Peter wouldn’t quit until _all_ the Observer’s were dead, regardless of cost.  For one brief moment, Olivia used everything in her arsenal to remind him who he was, what he meant to her, where he belonged.  The sacrifices _she_ had made, and how dare he fly in the face of that?  To discount her so readily.  That he had promised to be there if Olivia ever needed him, and she’s calling her marker in, _right now_ – and she was frightened, and so very angry her vision could bleed red, the air distorting with heat.  She said a lot of things that night.  Some of it loving, some of it hurtful, but all of it honest).   

Olivia can relate to making a choice in haste.  To not wanting to feel how she once felt and making a decision to alter it.  All three of them have made that decision poorly at one stage - be it swapping one history for another because Olivia didn’t like feeling numb - wanted the emotional richness the other timeline gave her.  Or be it swapping one world for another because Lincoln wanted to help people, was sick of being overlooked by his colleagues, wanted _recognition._   Or be it Peter’s grief and his recklessness, pushing to the edge of becoming the enemy.  

All three of them hated what they were feeling.  And all three choose to be somewhere else instead, _feel_ something else instead.  Or in one case, feel nothing at all. She might have been furious at Peter, but on some level, Olivia understood. Circling, overlapping the same ground - but always moving in opposite directions to one another – a rotating triskellion of three.  She studies Lincoln’s profile.  He’s lost some of his early innocence.  Then Olivia ponders if maybe Lincoln never had the innocence to begin with, that it was something she had lumped him with, boxed up neatly and put aside as untouchable.

“I’m sorry September chose that moment to drag you here.” Olivia can’t find the words to say she doesn’t mind his confessions, these worries Lincoln shares guilelessly.  Olivia’s worn down by secrets.  She finds the honesty refreshing. 

He shrugs and relaxes again. “Judging by his timing, I'd say September doesn't like me much.”

“He had a habit of shooting Peter in the chest, too… constantly, actually.  At least he didn’t pull the trigger with you.”  

“No.  He just let some random Observer shoot me in a crossfire.” 

Olivia had taken the opposition out as soon as the Observers re-directed toward Lincoln’s position.  The resistance and the invaders were as equally startled by his abrupt appearance – a comical pause mid-fight as Lincoln popped into existence - which in turn, brought them precious moments to regroup before the violence erupted in force.

Unlike Peter - who literally lost both worlds when history was re-written - Lincoln always had a home.  He always had a place where he actually belonged.  Where he was known, well liked, and was respected.  If she had her time over, Olivia would be sure to tell him so.  She pats his kneecap and stands up, joints popping as she stretches.  “Whatever else you do, use the boiled water at camp.”

He tilts his head to track her movement, teeth flashing white as he smiles reluctantly.  “Yes, ma’am.”

Olivia hesitates, thinking about the past, about innocent attraction, about not having to fight tooth and nail, then slips forward by increments. She catches Lincoln’s jaw by her fingertips, bends slowly to kiss him. 

His lips are moist, soft and un-chaffed.  He hasn’t been exposed to the damaged air quality for as long as Olivia has been; he makes a low sound in the back of his throat, and opens his mouth wider in invitation.  Lincoln hooks a hand into her belt tentatively.  Olivia stands over him, curved like a question mark.  She tastes Lincoln inquisitively, taking all the lost time and half remembered histories between them.  She kisses him like she wanted to do, in a diner on the corner of ninth and Elvan street, so many years ago. It isn’t earth-shattering.  Sparks don’t fly, but it feels like comfort, like something Olivia would never have to struggle for.  In a smothered brook in an occupied world, it feels like a glimmer of peace.

Lincoln’s eyes are wide.  “I’ve been shot…well, I’ve been stunned,” he amends to the darkness.  “And Olivia’s grieving.  Trust me, poor decisions are _always_ made when grief is involved.”

“Yeah. I’ve come to understand that.” Peter steps out of the tree line silently.  “It’s funny: mannerisms, temperament, clothing and glasses, I always figured the two of you resembled siblings rather than lovers.”

Lincoln makes an undignified noise in the back of his throat. 

He doesn’t see the amusement in Peter’s eyes, the eloquent quirk to his mouth.  Olivia, who spent two weeks seeing nothing but studied blankness in Peter’s expression, can read every nuance like an open book now.  He _is_ amused, and unless Olivia misses her guess, a little turned on, too.  “Siblings?” she queries musingly.  “I don’t recall kissing Rachel like that.  Ever.”

“I’m not sure if I’m disturbed by the current conversation, or by the thought you felt we were too similar, and encouraged our relationship anyway.”

“You encouraged our relationship?” Olivia parries, and feels her head snap toward Peter, intrigued despite herself.  “When was this?”

“You _are_ too similar,” Peter redirects.  “But that’s not really a problem at the moment.”  He meets Olivia’s eyes, expression somehow gentling, his tone implies safe, safe, come back safe.  “Stick together?”  Peter retreats the same way he came, circling toward Walter and Astrid’s position.

Olivia watches as Lincoln face drops. “What the hell just happened?”

Peter knows it as easily as Olivia does.  

She breathes out, relieved, emotion choking her as she watches Peter’s retreat.  “I kissed you because I was curious, had been for over twenty years.  I remember asking you out.  I remember when you gave me Robert’s bracelet.  And I remember thinking you were worth the risk.”  Olivia could say she’s sorry – sorry for the unintentional hurts she may have caused – but it wasn’t about choosing Peter, the same way it wasn’t about _not_ choosing Lincoln – her decision had nothing to do with the qualities of the men surrounding her.   She studies Lincoln, and keeps her voice level.  “But for the moment, I need someone I can trust, one hundred per cent, especially if we’re going to win this war.  Someone whose actions I don't need to second-guess all the time. And I wanted to thank you, for agreeing to come back…for wanting to fight for this world.”

“It’s my world,” he says blankly, as if that’s the only excuse Lincoln needs.

“It is,” Olivia agrees.  

She pro-offers a hand until Lincoln accepts it, and helps him to his feet.  She leads the way toward camp without another word.  He did agree to return, and Olivia’s not egotistical enough to think she’s the sole reason behind his motive to do so.  Peter looks up when they come into sight.  He’s sitting on a wooden crate beside a rubbish-bin fire.  The rank smell of oiled rags reveals the ignition source, souring the air with blue smoke.   He looks faintly surprised to see them so soon.  

Olivia picks her way across broken bottles and torn up bitumen. She’s been wearing the same clothing for months - washing by hand when necessary - her jeans aren’t salvageable by this point.  She sits at Peter’s feet, close to the fire, watching the flames flicker toward the open sky.  Close enough to be burnt, for her clothes to cinder. “You’re not negotiable.  Not for me,” she says, evenly.  She’s lost too much already, and there are precious few things left in this world that are Olivia’s alone.  Peter curls around her, relieved.  He breathes slowly against her eardrum, making Olivia’s body resonate, sing, stand on end.

“You _were_ unbearably sexy together.”

She tracks Lincoln as he sits down on the opposite side of the barrel, head lowered as he starts a conversation with Astrid.  “He’s damaged,” she says softly.  He needs time, she means.

“Aren’t we all?”  Olivia settles more firmly against him, bracing her back against Peter's knees, letting his arm drape over her shoulder, hook around her ribcage, warm her through.  He kisses the crown of her forehead.  “He’s good for you,” Peter adds, slowly.

"I know he is,” she agrees without rancour.  “But at the moment, winning the war will be better for me.”  She’ll sort the boy’s out when Lincoln’s isn’t drugged to the gills, when Peter and herself aren’t healing, skin still tender from accidental burns.  She has no intention of losing anyone else.

 


End file.
